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09-05-2009, 08:05 AM
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#16 | | Senior Member
Join Date: Mar 2005
Posts: 2,168
| Imo, they want a personal, detailed and revealing essay. Something so you that that only you could write it.
So, looking here is looking in the wrong place. Look inside. | 
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09-05-2009, 08:42 AM
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#17 | | Junior Member
Join Date: May 2009 Location: New York City
Posts: 274
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When high school seniors write college essays, they forget the purpose of the essay. Everyone sees all these people writing about saving animals in Africa or inventing new things or having your own company or opening a non profit organization. These are all great ideas and great accomplishments, however these ideas and accomplishments do not necessarily make your essay better. Admissions officers just want another piece of work to learn more about you. They want to see how you think and how you approach a prompt. A good way for you to show your admissions officer you are more than just a number, grade, ranking is by writing a well thought out college essay. It does not have to be an amazing essay with numerous accomplishments, just good enough to let the admissions officer into your world and how you think.
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09-05-2009, 02:59 PM
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#18 | | Member
Join Date: Dec 2007
Posts: 767
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i want to write phemonenal essay because i am borderline for ivys.....I have 32 ACT...so I want o write something that goes off the page. That blows the admission officer's mind.
Advice please?
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09-05-2009, 10:06 PM
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#19 | | Junior Member
Join Date: Jun 2009
Posts: 34
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I agree with commentcomment. It's not necessarily the subject that you write about (even though that does matter), but how you write it, what angle you approach it from, and how you link it to yourself.
The one word that an admissions officer from Stanford told me he was looking for in an essay is VOICE. They want to get a feel for who you are, your personality, how you think.
That's just my two cents.
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09-05-2009, 10:18 PM
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#20 | | Senior Member
Join Date: Sep 2008
Posts: 9,149
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Everyone has the same advice but in reality, few can pull it off.
My first 2 were high stats students who didn't make it into their top choice colleges. For my third we hired an excellent essay counselor and learned that we could no more become experts on college essays by reading books than we could be expert accountants or car mechanics doing the same. He got in.
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09-05-2009, 10:32 PM
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#21 | | Junior Member
Join Date: Jun 2009
Posts: 138
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this thread is silly. what makes a jaw-dropping essay is one that is unique, one that no one esle can produce. How can you define what makes uniqueness?
The only definite thing that can improve a college essay is good grammar and vocabulary skills, but those are already learned, you have em or you dont.
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09-06-2009, 12:22 AM
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#22 | | Member
Join Date: Dec 2007
Posts: 767
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Anyone seen the movie 21? If so, thats the type of essay (that the med student writes at the end) that is actually amazing....
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09-07-2009, 01:35 AM
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#23 | | Junior Member
Join Date: Aug 2009
Posts: 96
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all great essays have a universal truth
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09-07-2009, 12:31 PM
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#24 | | Senior Member
Join Date: Sep 2008
Posts: 9,149
| Quote: |
what makes a jaw-dropping essay is one that is unique, one that no one esle can produce.
| Pretty much impossible.
What makes a great essay is telling an interesting story in the right "voice." The voice part is what we were missing before we hired a professional. This is not easy to accomplish and where most go wrong.
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09-07-2009, 02:13 PM
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#25 | | Senior Member
Join Date: Mar 2005
Posts: 2,168
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An essay that reveals an interesting aspect of the applicant, who is a unique human being, in a detailed way will be sufficiently close to something that no one else can produce.
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09-14-2009, 11:13 AM
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#26 | | New Member
Join Date: Sep 2009
Posts: 2
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The truly phenomenal essays are the ones that are sincere and honest. From what I have seen on this discussion board, sincere and honest essays are practically extinct. Why? because they end up on the reject pile with the sincere and honest people. I know this because I am a high school teacher. I read my students' essays. I know which essays lead to acceptance and which ones lead to rejection. The ones that lead to acceptance all have a faint whiff of exaggeration, if not outright falsehood. You may not want to believe that this is true, but it is. I always advise honesty, but my advice is typically ignored by the Type A's who populate the top level schools.
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09-14-2009, 05:11 PM
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#27 | | Member
Join Date: Dec 2008
Posts: 505
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^ Why do you suppose this is the case? Quote: |
The truly phenomenal essays are the ones that are sincere and honest.
| Why then would these "sincere and honest essays" end up on the reject pile? Is it because of students' inability to turn their sincere and honest essays into something "truly phenomenal" without resorting to "whiff of exageration" or "outright falsehood"? If so, then the problem isn't the content, but the presentation. Quote: |
What makes a great essay is telling an interesting story in the right "voice." The voice part is what we were missing before we hired a professional. This is not easy to accomplish and where most go wrong.
| Perhaps hmom5's advice above is the answer, at least for some of the applicants.
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09-14-2009, 08:46 PM
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#28 | | Senior Member
Join Date: Mar 2005
Posts: 2,168
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I've read hundreds of essays on this site over the years. My experience has been quite different from that of William Turing (#26). In my experience, students with the most personal, detailed, honest and revealing essays have done well in the admissions process and have been more likely than others to gain admittance to their first choice schools.
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